[EM] Droop fails the Markus Schulze Rule

[Markus Schulze]

Dear Craig,

you wrote (19 Oct 1999):
> At 21:16 18.10.99 , Markus Schulze wrote:
> > I want to add that (in so far as most election methods don't
> > guarantee that a voter cannot be punished for going to the polls
> > and voting sincerely) the concept of wasted votes cannot really
> > be used as a criterion. It is only a heuristic like Blake
> > Cretney's aim to find the "best guess for the best candidate."
> > The reason: The concept of wasted votes implicitly presumes that
> > every voter wants to be counted; but a voter who worsens the
> > election result (by going to the polls and voting sincerely)
> > rather wants to be ignored than counted. This is also the reason
> > why Michael Dummett rejects the concept of wasted votes.
>
> When a voter casts a vote, that vote shifts the point
> representing the election outcome by some amount towards the
> point representing the voter's vote. Given that the point of
> the election outcome exists if the voter does vote, then if the
> voter doesn't turn up and vote, the voter is effectively casting
> a negative vote and the election's point goes back to where it
> was. So not voting is little different from voting, in that the
> point representing the election outcome is moved by some distance.
>
> Mr Schulze may be wrong when saying voters want to be ignored:
> That seems to presume that the voter has not got a full knowledge
> of the method and the paper counts. Some of the persons advocating
> their positions had a knowledge of an instance where number made
> their stance correct.

Do you question that some election methods sometimes punish voters
for going to the polls and voting sincerely? Or do you question that
a voter rather wants to have no influence on the election result than
to worsen the election result?

Markus Schulze